Neural mechanisms for learning self and other ownership

Patricia L Lockwood,Molly J Crockett,Matthew A J Apps,Marco K Wittmann,Glyn W Humphreys,Matthew F S Rushworth,Miriam C Klein-Flügge

doi:10.1038/s41467-018-07231-9

Abstract

Sense of ownership is a ubiquitous and fundamental aspect of human cognition. Here we used model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging and a novel minimal ownership paradigm to probe the behavioural and neural mechanisms underpinning ownership acquisition for ourselves, friends and strangers. We find a self-ownership bias at multiple levels of behaviour from initial preferences to reaction times and computational learning rates. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and anterior cingulate sulcus (ACCs) responded more to self vs. stranger associations, but despite a pervasive neural bias to track self-ownership, no brain area tracked self-ownership exclusively. However, ACC gyrus (ACCg) specifically coded ownership prediction errors for strangers and ownership associative strength for friends and strangers but not for self. Core neural mechanisms for associative learning are biased to learn in reference to self but also engaged when learning in reference to others. In contrast, ACC gyrus exhibits specialization for learning about others.

Highlights

Sense of ownership is a ubiquitous and fundamental aspect of human cognition
The rate at which people formed ownership associations between their own selves and objects is most strongly tracked in Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Adjacent to both these wellstudied regions, most notably in anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) gyrus (ACCg) but to a lesser extent in dorsal 11 m in vmPFC, we found evidence for specialized areas coding for a learning-related signal, prediction errors, in relation to other agents
We found evidence that two cortical regions, already known to have a role in learning reward outcome-related associations and reward outcome association-guided decision making, vmPFC and ACCs, had a broad role in learning associations with all three types of agents

Summary

Introduction

Sense of ownership is a ubiquitous and fundamental aspect of human cognition. Here we used model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging and a novel minimal ownership paradigm to probe the behavioural and neural mechanisms underpinning ownership acquisition for ourselves, friends and strangers. Several studies suggest that acquiring a sense of ownership can profoundly change our perception, memory, attention and decisionmaking[2,3,4,5,6,7,8] It has long been thought, since the time of William James, that ownership may be underpinned by associative processes[9] and it is this possibility that we examine empirically here. Ownership of an item increases its value and desirability, as shown in economic studies of the endowment effect[6] and in social psychological studies of mere ownership[2,5] Together, these studies suggest that the processing of information related to ourselves is facilitated, such that it is better recalled, processed more rapidly, and biases our preferences, learning and decision-making, compared to information related to other people. There is evidence that mPFC may reflect self and other relevant information in a spatial gradient with self-related activity increasingly prominent as one moves towards vmPFC and other related processing increasingly prominent as one moves towards dorsal–medial PFC (dmPFC)[34]

Methods

Results

Conclusion